


Seasonal Forensics and Applied Architecture

by greendale_student



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:55:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28458639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greendale_student/pseuds/greendale_student
Summary: Winter break doesn't stop Troy, Abed, and Annie from doing a caper.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes & Annie Edison & Abed Nadir
Kudos: 23





	Seasonal Forensics and Applied Architecture

The Greendale campus is quiet, the students away for winter break, chairs stacked atop tables in the dimly lit cafeteria while the calm is only disturbed by the fluttering of birds in the snow-covered bushes outside the window, but to Annie Edison the school seems poised for the start of an exciting new semester of classes and shenanigans. She smiles fondly as she tiptoes across the room, feeling especially sentimental about Greendale now that’s re-enrolled, replacing a frustrating post-graduation job with what Abed called a reboot of the study group’s adventures. Not that volunteering to run an errand for Dean Pelton while he was on vacation was so unusual for Annie, but she mostly agreed just to have an excuse to reacquaint herself with the campus. Making her way through the library, Annie is pleased to see the books on the shelves more neatly placed than usual. She notes a few favorite corners for studying, and catches herself blushing when she looks out one particular window. Now there’s snow falling outdoors rather than paint indoors, but this is where she kissed Abed during paintball, a thrilling moment she still doesn’t know what to make of. Dismissing that line of thought, Annie walks up to the door of Study Room F; the new table the group made together sits ready for action. She’s still contemplating the history of the study room when she hears a loud noise somewhere in the library, a hint of movement before the slam of a door. Annie walks towards the noise and looks around; no one in sight. She remembers that Chang is living on campus, and there’s always the monkey that roams the vents and hoards captured trinkets. Setting the mystery aside, she delivers the papers she was supposed to bring to the Dean’s desk and walks back across the cafeteria to the student lounge. There, the couches and foosball table have disappeared from view under a well-engineered dome of blankets.

Annie crawls into the blanket fort and finds Troy and Abed in a cozy niche, watching a movie on Abed’s laptop. “Hey guys,” she greets them, suddenly feeling awkward at the way her arm brushes Abed’s in the confines of the blanket fort. Her roommates got the Dean’s permission to build a celebratory blanket fort on campus, so they joined Annie for today’s errand. She watches the movie with them, and when they decide to head back to Apartment 303 for dinner, they leave the fort up to visit tomorrow. When they step outside, on a whim, Annie walks towards one of the library doors, near where she heard that noise from the study room. Troy looks quizzical at her detour, but Abed follows, watching intently as if he senses a sitcom plot afoot.

In the snow covering the lawn outside the library are footprints—fresh ones—spaced far apart as if the person making them was running. Annie is excited to try out the concepts from Forensics class, but the tracks don’t reveal much more than shoe size—until she follows the trail and sees the impression where the person slipped and fell into the snow. The tracks went right back to the previous spacing. Whoever made them was in a big hurry to get away from the library. Beyond there, the trail disappears on a cleared walkway that leads to a street where plenty of people walk even on a cold, snowy day. Annie walks back to Troy and Abed, mind racing.

“You guys, I think someone’s up to something,” she blurts out excitedly. “I heard a door slam and didn’t think much about it, but then I saw the tracks and it really looks like someone ran out of the library when they saw me there! The Dean specifically said that it was supposed to be locked now when we borrowed the key, and...” Annie trails often, momentarily worried they’ll think she’s crazy until she remembers that Troy and Abed don’t think like that.

“So you interrupted a burglar in the middle of some no doubt nefarious activity?” Abed guesses, jumping into the potential for a caper like always. For some reason Annie thinks of how much persuasion it would require to get Jeff to go along with something like this.

“Well, maybe,” Annie muses, knowing she doesn’t have much evidence to prove that. “I’m not sure how we’d find out what they were doing, though, assuming they didn’t leave a note.”

“Unless...” Troy draws out his statement for dramatic effect, “the burglar comes back to finish the crime.”

He and Abed exchange excited glances. “Stakeout episode!” They announce in unison.

It might be a silly idea, but with Troy and Abed here, Annie doesn’t have to feel embarrassed about indulging in the adventure. What more appropriate way to start a semester at Greendale? Gesturing to her roommates, she leads the way back to the library.

  
  


They walk around the building, eyes open for clues, but are forced to admit they don’t see any obvious proof of a burglary. The Greendale campus is chaotic enough that even Annie finds it hard to tell if anything’s been disturbed. That leaves Troy and Abed’s idea of keeping watch to see if the theoretical burglar revisits the scene of the crime. Back at the apartment, they compare notes; Dean Pelton’s rambling email to Annie explaining the errands she was doing proves surprisingly useful, since he mentioned details of the school’s business that were irrelevant to the errands but more interesting now.

“If someone was going to break in using conventional methods, or somehow stole a key,” Annie muses, “they would probably do it at night, when there are less likely to be people around. So I figure the alleged burglar waited for someone to leave a door open. According to the Dean’s unnecessarily comprehensive schedule, there was a delivery to the kitchens just before we arrived.”

“Clever,” Abed announces. “We could be up against a spy. Maybe an agent from a rival cafeteria stealing Greendale’s trade secrets.”

“Yeah, but who’d want to copy Greendale’s food?” Troy protests.

“I heard sounds in the library, not the kitchens,” Annie reminds them. “But the delivery could be an opportunity for someone to sneak into the building. And there’s another one tomorrow evening. So theoretically, if they were going to try again, it might be then.”

“Good,” Troy says decisively, “because we have an awesome plan.”

  
  


It’s not conventional or especially practical, but Troy and Abed’s plan is certainly fun. It relies, in true Greendale fashion, on a blanket fort.

“The Dean likes doing Dean stuff so much, he put the permit for our blanket fort on the Greendale reservation website even though the campus is closed,” Abed explains. “Anyone planning a good heist would memorize that schedule, so if they see a blanket fort it shouldn’t scare them off as long as they don’t think we’re there at the moment.”

“And with a few secret passageways, we can fool them into thinking it’s unoccupied,” Troy adds.

Annie feels like she should suggest something simpler, but hiding in the vents would be unpleasant and they could be seen trying to sneak around the library. And even if she was inclined to let someone else have the fun, it wasn’t like they had much to report to campus security. “It’s worth a try,” she tells Troy and Abed.

  
  


So they return to campus the next day and set to work building a new blanket fort among the library shelves. Really Annie should have suggested this yesterday; the shelves are convenient for holding up blankets and now the corridors of the fort are decorated with books. When Annie walks to a supply closet to requisition some extra blankets, she returns to find a challenge from Troy and Abed.

“Hey Annie, try and find us,” Troy announces from within the fort as Annie reaches the library.

“Invisibility mode is activated,” Abed says in a voice probably based on some science fiction character.

Walking through the fort, Annie is momentarily confused by the seeming disappearance of Troy and Abed. Then, recognizing a blanket they added since she left, she pulls it aside and giggles at the sight of her roommates hiding in the corner of a small room partitioned off from the corridor. If she hadn’t known what the fort looked like before, she would’ve assumed she’d explored the whole place.

“We’ve placed these facing every direction, with line-of-sight around the library,” Abed tells Annie, showing her where a blanket can be pulled up to see outside the fort. “If we stay quiet we can watch anyone who comes in.”

  
  


Now they just need to wait to see if the possible burglar returns to the library. They eat some snacks, turn off all the lights, and huddle in the fort, whispering outlandish theories and occasionally switching to a different vantage point. The library stays quiet as night falls. They hear the delivery trucks park at the cafeteria, then drive away. A couple hours later, Annie is ready to call off the stakeout.

“I’ll scout out the northwest corner again before we leave,” Troy suggests, clearly hoping for a more satisfying conclusion to the caper.

Abed glances at Troy as he scrambles off, but follows Annie towards the entrance to the fort. Just as they’re about to emerge, Abed touches Annie’s arm and holds a finger to his lips.

Instinctively pressing herself against the blankets, Annie stares out at the dark library. There’s a hint of movement at the door, then a figure walking stealthily towards the study room—a tall man hidden by a heavy winter coat. Heart pounding, Annie grabs Abed’s hand. Before the burglar reaches the study room, he looks back at the fort, then starts walking towards the entrance.

Annie and Abed spring into action at the same moment, bolting towards the nearest hiding place. Abed can walk surprisingly quietly, a useful skill in paintball games; Annie hopes she’s doing the same. As they duck into the shelter of the hidden room, they hear rustling down the hall. Abed gestures to a gap in the blankets; Annie’s impressed that he thought to account for watching intruders in the fort as well as outside. If they press their faces against each other, they can both see the corridor.

Just enough of the glow from the streetlights outside reaches the fort so that the shape of the burglar is visible as he walks down the corridor between two bookshelves. Close to where Annie and Abed are hiding, he stops and stares at the blankets protecting the hidden room. Annie huddles against Abed, tense for action. Since they have some kind of permission to be here, getting caught isn’t theoretically much different from confronting the burglar as Annie had envisioned doing after seeing what he was up to, but instinctively she wants to stay hidden.

The burglar turns around and walks down the corridor, then disappears into a different part of the fort. After a moment, Annie hears footsteps going back towards the entrance. Suddenly noticing how closely she’s clinging to Abed, Annie pulls away. Abed is staring at her with a curious expression, as if he’s already analyzing her behavior and comparing it to sitcom tropes. Before he can ask any questions, Annie whispers “Study room.”

They tiptoe to the outside of the fort and look out. Sure enough, the burglar can be seen standing next to the study table. After looking around for a moment, he goes to the couch and lifts up a cushion—one Annie had dissuaded Troy and Abed from using to build the fort. “See, I told you we should leave the study room undisturbed,” she whispers triumphantly.

Abed nods agreement. Despite his confusion a moment ago, he’s pressed closely against Annie as they both try to see outside. Annie turns to face him and realizes she’s blushing. The awareness doesn’t stop her from leaning a bit closer.

The blankets behind them are swept aside, and Annie jumps back as Troy darts into the secret room. “Guys, he’s getting away—wait, what are you doing?”

“Surveillance!” Annie blurts out, at the same time that Abed says “Momentary ship tease, it’s a function of our being in something like a concept episode.”

Troy nods slowly while Annie, embarrassed that she was so easily distracted as well as at the nature of her thoughts for a moment, focuses her attention on the view outside. The burglar is already vanishing through the library doors. A moment later, there’s the distant sound of one of the building doors closing. When they leave the fort and go to the window, they see the man go along a campus walkway towards the street.

“So what, he was after something on the couch?” Troy wonders, diplomatically not mentioning Annie and Abed’s position when he arrived.

“Not necessarily,” Annie says, leading the way to the study room. Lifting the couch cushions, she picks up a plastic object. Abed switches on a flashlight. It’s a small tape recorder, like the one Annie used to use to record classes.

“So he is a spy,” Abed announces. He and Troy do their secret handshake.

“Why the study room?” Troy asks. “What would someone want to spy on here?”

“Us,” Abed says. “According to my contacts in the film program, City College uses this brand for all its sound equipment. They know the study group has foiled a lot of their schemes.”

“So do we tell the Dean?”

“I thought of a better idea,” Annie says, grinning. “They have to pick up the tape before they know what they recorded, and if we erase a bit they won’t know we know about it. I’m sure we can come up with some interesting things to tell City College.”

As they get ready to go back to Apartment 303, Annie wonders what she was thinking in that moment of distraction with Abed. He’s probably right that the excitement of the stakeout brought out some roleplaying habits, even though they hadn’t technically been in character. But she catches Abed watching her more closely, like he’s still trying to figure that moment out. Annie wonders if they should hang out in blanket forts more often.


End file.
